Karl Friedrich Schinkel- Altes Museum Berlin PDF

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Refining the world through beauty: Karl Friedrich Schinkel is the most important German architect of the 19th century. He was born March 13, 1781 in Neuruppin, and died October 9, 1841 in Berlin. He was also an Prussian architect, urban planner, painter, graphic artist, medalist and stage designer, ...

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Karl Friedrich Schinkel Altes Museum, Berlin

Modern Architect I: 1750-1900 research paper

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Refining the world through beauty: Karl Friedrich Schinkel is the most important German architect of the 19th century. He was born March 13, 1781 in Neuruppin, and died October 9, 1841 in Berlin. He was also an Prussian architect, urban planner, painter, graphic artist, medalist and stage designer, who played a decisive role in the classicism and historicism in Prussia. Schinkel was a senior land building director and architect of the king. His buildings still characterize the cityscape of the center of Berlin.1

This essay will conduct a research of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Old Museum in Berlin of 1824 until 1828, and focus on Schinkel´s design and how it cooperates through the interior and exterior architecture, his aspect, the enjoyment of art and how he shows that in his building. Lastly how he awakes the sense of visual art and how the museum can be seen as an educational institution.

Schinkel’s Old Museum in Berlin is a neoclassical building. It is 87 meters long and 55 meters wide. It follows with its clear outline of the design canon of Greek antiquity, thus explaining the rooted in the Enlightenment idea of a museum as an educational institution for the people.2

1 Buechel

Wolfgang, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, (Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994), 144- 146.

2 Buechel

Wolfgang, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, (Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994), 154- 155.

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“The subject of history is the gradual realization of all that is practically necessary.“- Karl Friedrich Schinkel

This is one of Schinkel’s most famous quotes and describes what matters the most for him. At first, the focus of my essay is on the facade which is clearly articulated by ionic columns. There are 18 ionic columns in the front which form a lobby. This also serves as an indoor and outdoor space. A grand staircase is at also an architectural element, which were reserved for stately buildings. The decoration program of the facade were of great importance. His museum should express a new, almost idealistic function. He called it the “pursuit of the moral perfection of hummanity“. So, in following in Schinkel’s eyes, man could only be perfected by culture into a whole being. The educated person, in harmony with nature, represented for Schinkel the desired goal of the museum.

Moreover, to support or promote the concentrated enjoyment of art, not only the exterior of the Old Museum was simple and even. For that reason, this essay will continue by focusing on the interior architecture. The interior of the Old Museum has a lot of similarities with the Pantheon in Rome, Italy. The design of its interior is based on temple models of classical antiquity. Therefore, the meaning of the museum was the “temple

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of art“. The interior of the building contains two courtyards as well as a magnificent central drum and rotunda. This was also based on the Pantheon.

In addition I especially want to take a look on the Rotunda, which can also be called the heart of the Old Museum (Fig.1). However, the Rotunda is located in the center of the building complex. It was modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, an ancient Roman temple that has been completely preserved to this day. Therefrom the rotunda is a rotunda covered by a 23 m high dome. In the middle of the dome opens a so-called Oculus, through which light enters the interior. An Oculus is a round opening. The dome, like its Roman model, is adorned with a coffered ceiling. The interior of the rotunda is divided into two floors. One includes a circular column row of 18 Corinthian columns on the ground floor, which carries a walk-in, and also circulating gallery (Fig.2). In the wall of the gallery, there are niches for holding statues. Between the columns on the ground floor, there are also ancient statues depicting ancient gods. The statues were acquired specifically for the design of the rotunda. All the statues came from Rome or the surrounding area of Rome and all are Roman copies or transformations of Greek models. This was in the rotunda, which imitates a Roman temple in their architecture, consciously paid attention to a Roman decor.3

3 Heilmeyer

Wolf, Schinkels Pantheon : Die Statuen der Rotunde im Alten Museum, (Verlag Philipp von Zabern in Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 20- 47.

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Schinkel wanted to "awake the sense of visual art, as one of the most important branches of human culture, with the museum visitors." With the help of the aestheticethical enjoyment of art, the visitor was to grow into a better, higher being. In this view, Schinkel agreed with Wilhelm von Humboldt's philosophical and aesthetic views. Wilhelm Humboldt was a Prussian philosopher, government functionary, and diplomat.45 Karl Friedrich Schinkel was very associated with leading poets, philosophers, and statesmen of his day. Under an aesthetic feeling, the statesman felt the connection between sensual reality and spiritual ideality. Such a connection can best be reached by a person through the path of education. The beauty is the best teaching material in Schinkel’s eye. In this case he also supported Humbold’s idea of the museum as an educational institution open to the public. That means a museum would have come to meet him thus to the formation of the citizen. 6

Another very significant point of my research was the placing and its surroundings.

4 Trempler

Joerg, Karl Friedrich Schinkel : Baumeister Preussens, (C. H. Beck, 2012), 20-37, 160- 188.

5 Bergdoll

Berry and Lessing Erich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: an architecture for Prussia (Rizzoli, 1994), 240.

6 Strecke

Reinhardt, Schinkel: oder die Oekonomische des Aesthetischen, (Libreka GmbH, 2017), 11- 13.

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“…the site required a very monumental building. Therefore I preferred one giant order rather than two individual expressions for the two main stories. The building surrounded on all sides by the Ionic entablature or the Ionic columnar hall, with Ionic pilasters at the four corners, forms a simple yet grand main structure into which the two floors are inserted in a subordinate manner.“- Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Accordingly, this quote supports his goal, which was a design as a well-publicized art collection in Berlin. The Old Museum was part of an open rectangle. The politics Berlin Palace, the military Arsenal and church Berlin cathedral added as the fourth element of the art. So, the museum was located in axis with the palace and was adjacent to the cathedral and arsenal. This is supposed giving it a central place among these three pillars of the Prussian state. It became a magnificent icon. Finally, Schinkel's Museum illustrates a change in the purpose of art presentation. Something that has emerged in the history of art as a treasure of the past, should now be shown in a consecrated place and the visitor should be less instructed in the tour, than inspired.

In conclusion, Schinkel’s Old Museum attempts to suggest how art is connected to the world socially, culturally, and morally, within the context of Prussian society. Today, in the Old Museum parts of the collection of antiques with works of art of the

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Greeks as well as the Egyptian museum and papyrus collection with the world-famous bust of Queen Nefertiti present themselves.7

7 Imhof

Michael, Berlin- Neue architektur. Fuehrer zu den Bauten von 1989 bis heute, (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2005),

23-54.

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IMAGES! Fig. 1:

https://www.inexhibit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Altes-Museum-Berlin!

Fig. 2:

http://www.smb.museum/fileadmin/_processed_/1/0/csm_01_Profil_f9c23ca7f5.jpg!

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Bibliography!

Heilmeyer Wolf, Schinkels Pantheonf: Die Statuen der Rotunde im Alten Museum, (Verlag Philipp von Zabern in Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 20- 47. Buechel Wolfgang, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, (Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994), 144159. Trempler Joerg, Karl Friedrich Schinkelf: Baumeister Preussens, (C. H. Beck, 2012), 2037, 160- 188. Bergdoll Berry and Lessing Erich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel: an architecture for Prussia (Rizzoli, 1994), 240. Strecke Reinhardt, Schinkel: oder die Oekonomische des Aesthetischen, (Libreka GmbH, 2017), 11- 13. Imhof Michael, Berlin- Neue Architektur. Fuehrer zu den Bauten von 1989 bis heute, (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2005), 23-54.

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